Assistant Professor of Sociology
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Office: Carr House 208 Phone: (401) 454-6668 E-mail: dwhite01@risd.edu |
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| Biographical Information |
Damian White was born in London, England to Irish parents and brought up in the East London suburbs. He has a BA (First Class) in Political Science and American Studies from the University of Keele, an M.Sc in Political Sociology and Political Theory from Birkbeck College, University of London and a Ph.D in Environmental Sociology from the Dept of Sociology at the University of Essex in 2000. Between 2003-2006, he convened four ‘technonatures’ symposia with Chris Wilbert which took place respectively in London, Oxford, Stockholm and Chicago. He is a founding member of the Institute for Beliefs and Values (IBAVI) http://www.jmu.edu/ibavi/. He has presented his academic work at conferences in Europe and America, China, Taiwan and Japan. |
| Teaching |
Damian has been teaching since 1993. Between 1993-1995, he taught political science and sociology to 16-18 years in two inner city community colleges in London. Subsequently he has taught courses in social and political theory, environmental sociology, historical sociology, political sociology, urban studies, urban political ecology, the philosophy of the social sciences, the sociology of technology and the sociology of the information society in departments of Politics, Sociology and Innovation Studies in the UK and in the US. Introduction to Social Theory .pdf Sociology of the Environment .pdf Cities, Urbanization, Nature .pdf Sociologies and Anthropologies of Urbanism & Design .pdf
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Scholarship/Publications |
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Damian’s primary research draws from literatures in environmental sociology, political sociology, political ecology and political theory to examine what is politically at stake in the current environmental debate. This work has variously explored (1) the relationship between capital, markets, the state and the environment, (2) the discourses of a range of environmental and anti-environmental social movements (from social ecologists and ecological modernizers to contrarians, neo-Malthusians and post-environmentalists) (3) the historical relations or metabolism between society and nature. Damian has published a range of academic papers in all these areas. His first book ‘Murray Bookchin: A Critical Appraisal’ was published in 2008 by Pluto Press in the UK and distributed by the University of Michigan Press in the US. This book provides a review and sympathetic but critical assessment of the writings of the controversial social and ecological philosopher, Murray Bookchin, one of the seminal early thinkers in the development of modern political ecology. He has a book proposal (co-written with Alan Rudy), entitled ‘Environments, Natures and Social Theory’ under review with Palgrave. This book will provide a comprehensive review and engagement with recent post structuralist, hybrid and technonatural currents in environmental sociology.
A second body of work that he has developed over the last 5 years is in the area of science and technology studies. This interest in part emerged out research on the public understanding of science in the UK with Dr Josephine Stein and in part out of sympathy with Murray Bookchin’s call for a ‘liberatory technology’. In its earliest form, he attempted to develop a reconstructive sociology of sustainable technological innovation through examining the social, cultural and political assumptions underpinning the work of the eco-technologist Amory Lovins and his co-workers on ‘The Green Industrial Revolution’. He presented this paper at an EU conference, ‘Policy Agendas for Sustainable Technological Innovation in 2001’ at the University of East London, at Cambridge University and at Imperial College. This lead to an attempt to draw eight European Universities to discuss ‘The Green Industrial Revoution’. More recent work on ‘Technonatures’, developed in collaboration with the cultural geographer Chris Wilbert has examined society-technology-environment relations from the vantage point of cultural studies and the worlds of ‘cyborg ecology’. Drawing inspiration from the writings of political ecologists such as Neil Smith, Bruce Braun, Noel Castree, and Erik Swyngedouw and hybridity theorists such as Donna Haraway, Sarah Whatmore and Bruno Latour, ‘technonatures’ has sought to try and think through the social, ethical, political and ecological consequences of living in technologically saturated worlds where distinctions between ‘society’, ‘technology’ and ‘nature’ have become increasingly difficult to clearly demarcate. Central to this project has been to reflect on the question how can we think about a politics of nature when the nature of ‘Nature’ is ever more uncertain? A special issue of Science as Culture on ‘Technonatures’ was published in 2006. Chris and Damian published the edited book collection 'Technonatures' with Wilfred Laurier University Press in 2009 as part of their 'environmental humanities' series http://www.wlupress.wlu.ca/press/Catalog/white-wilbert.shtml.
Damian’s final area of research combines interests in sustainable urban design and sociological perspectives on design in general with urban political ecology and an interest in the future of the city and the city of the future. He regularly teaches a course entitled ‘Cities, Urbanization, Nature’ which explores the contribution that the social and historical sciences can make to discussions of the past, present and future of the relations between urbanization, cities and nature. With Chris Wilbert, he is presently completing an anthology on the Anarchist theorist of urban design and architecture, Colin Ward. He is planning to develop future research projects on urban political ecology and the sociology of urban design. He also has interests in the politics of urban futurism, the political theory of utopia/distopia. He is particularly interested in the role that technological utopianism and technological determinism can play in closing down and opening up social and political discourse, and the role that cyborg discourse and ecological thought has played in reviving utopian and distopian political theory. He would welcome the opportunity to work with RISD student in any of the above areas.
Introduction: Technonatural Time-Spaces .pdf Post-Industrial Possibilities and Urban Social Ecologies: Bookchin’s Legacy .pdf Anti-Environmentalism: Prometheans, Contrarians and Beyond .pdf A Political Sociology of Socionatures: Revisionist Manoeuvres in Environmental Sociology .pdf Anarchism, Libertarianism and Environmentalism .pdf |
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